VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

Unpacking & Contextualizing Gender:
Managing Bias in the Therapeutic Relationship

BUILDING CONFIDENCE AND COMPETENCE AS A GENDER AFFIRMATIVE PROVIDER

November 9-10, 2025

12 CEs available

Take this important and necessary step in increasing your confidence and clarity as a competent gender affirmative provider through understanding your own gender journey and biases that influence your work.

Let’s build your confidence in your skills to…

  • competently, ethically, and affirmatively join with your trans, non-binary, gender expansive clients and their families. 
  • recognize your own biases and understand their impact on the questions you ask (or don’t ask) 
  • evaluate the intersections of identity and cultural narratives that influence your biases (we all have them) 
  • develop the tools you need to manage and work with your biases to enhance your therapeutic relationships 
  • confidently provide services that meet your client where they are at
At some point, we have all had one or more of these struggles and fears, more often because we were unaware of our stories, experiences, and biases around gender. 

Understanding your own gender journey will help you better understand your gender diverse clients and their families, find confidence in the questions you ask, improve your ability to meet your clients where they are, and help families navigate this journey with their loved one.

In-depth Learning Experience

This is a 2-Day hands-on, experiential training for therapists who work with transgender, non-binary, gender expansive people and their families. It involves key person-of-the-therapist exploration necessary for gender affirmative work involving unpacking and deconstructing your own gender identity, gender development, and cultural narratives around gender, uncovering potential areas of bias and developing tools to manage those in a therapeutic relationship.

You will receive an experiential, first-hand experience of unpacking and deconstructing gender for yourself, interactive discussions to uncover the cultural narratives that influence your beliefs around gender, and a witnessing of the experience of other gender narratives. We will all explore the bias inherent in our beliefs and how to manage and use these in sessions. You will walk away from this workshop understanding acutely the experience of the transgender, non-binary and gender expansive client they work with and the impact of the questions they ask.

What is covered?

In brief, you will be engaging in experiential exercises over the course of 2 days that will help you uncover, unpack, and deconstruct your personal gender journey, discovering your own story and cultural narratives that influence you, the potential biases that inform your work, tools to manage these, and much more...

DAY 1
Unpacking and Deconstructing Gender: An Intersectional Person-of-the-Therapist Lens.

•   Recognizing diversity of Experience 
•   Understanding Gender in Context 
•   Understanding Your Gender & Discovering Your Journey 
•   Gender Interviewing 
•   The Wheel of Privilege and Marginalization 
•   Unpacking Personal Value Systems Unpacking Cultural Narratives and Influence (small groups) 
•   Unpacking Gender Narratives (large groups) 
•   The impact of gender & cultural narratives on parents, parenting, and families

DAY 2
Managing and Working with Bias

•   Review of Unpacking Gender and Its Clinical Usefulness
•   Description of Common & Subtle Biases and Their Impact
•   Uncovering personal bias based on your gender journey
•   Tools and Tactics for Recognizing, Managing, and Using Bias
•   Q&A and Wrap-up

Learning Objectives:

At the completion of this workshop, attendees will be able to…

  • Explain the differences between your sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and gender roles.
  • Describe your gender development and it’s impact on your understanding of gender
  • Evaluate the impact of the questions you ask your clients to understand their gender identity
  • Identify the cultural and familial sources that influenced your understanding and performance of gender.
  • Describe your cultural gender narratives and their influence on potential biases 
  • Evaluate how your value system impacts your experience of gender and your clinical work 
  • Evaluate the impact of gender narratives on approaches to parenting 
  • Identify your positive and negative gender biases and how they impact your work with gender diverse clients and their families. 
  • Demonstrate the ability to recognize biases and utilize tools to counter and manage them.

You will walk away from this workshop understanding acutely the experience of the transgender, non-binary and gender expansive clients you work with, their families, and the impact of the questions you ask.

12 CEs available

Special Early Bird Price (offer valid until October 25, 2025)

$375

* After October 25, the price goes up to $575

Course Curriculum

What our participants said

The exercises on understanding bias, but also the open dialogue among clinicians around their own struggles, their areas of vulnerability, skills they use and being able to talk through ways to think about our work that will serve our patients and us.

Kristy V.

I found the breakout rooms helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of some of the challenges other parents/caregivers were experiencing vis a vie their loved ones, and how best to advocate on their behalf. It also allowed time to dive deeper into the topic being discussed. For me, I like to get into the weeds and essence and have found that can be difficult at times with a large group.

Alexander R.

The preparatory homework was really helpful as was the pre-workshop webinar that i viewed as a recording. i watched most of it. the pre workshop activities helped me get familiar with the material and help myself to get into a helpful headspace. As a provider, the most helpful parts of the workshop were when i listened to and participated with other providers. It was so great to have a space where I could bring my whole self professional and personal. There was a level of vulnerability that felt really good and I’m not sure if that’s something that can be recreated but it was so helpful. I did also get a lot our of the opportunity to learn from parents/caregivers without having them be my patients’ family members!!

Dan B.

The pre-work exercises, the small group discussions (especially the gender/sexual orientations with just 2 people, we were really able to go deep), discussions around bias and privilege.

Ning Z.

Being able to explore perceptions, thoughts, and feelings around a variety of topics and have in depth conversations with others around them.

Anne M.

The exercises on understanding bias, but also the open dialogue among clinicians around their own struggles, their areas of vulnerability, skills they use and being able to talk through ways to think about our work that will serve our patients and us.

Willow T.

The way it was organized and the ability to both get information and to do the work looking at my own gender history and biases that I was unaware of existing.

Beth M.

The small group discussions were very helpful. I appreciated hearing from both parental and clinical views on subjects of gender biases and leveraging privilege. I also found the materials presented to be very useful in framing the topics discussed. Finally, Dr. Giammatei’s exceptional navigation of nuanced and emotionally-laden topics was an honor to witness and learn from.

Michelle H.

Shawn V Giammattei, PhD

For those who don’t know me, I am a licensed psychologist in Northern California, a member of the transgender community, and a WPATH certified mentor who is dedicated to helping therapists provide gender affirmative care to transgender, nonbinary, gender-expansive (trans) clients and their families across the life span, and build gender-affirming practices while navigating the quickly changing world of transgender health so that your clients and their families can build stronger connections, live with authenticity, and receive the care they need. 

I have no commercial disclosures or conflicts of interest to report.

The Gender Health Training Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists.
Gender Health Training Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Special Early Bird Price (offer valid until October 12, 2025)

* After October 12, the price goes up to $575

EARLY BIRD - One time payment

$375.00 

One Single payment

  • 2-Day Virtual Workshop 
  •   Templates and tools 
  • One-year access to the recordings
  • A Certificate of Attendance (12 CEs)

EARLY BIRD - Monthly installments

$200.00/monthly

Two (2) Monthly Payments

  • 2-Day Virtual Workshop 
  •  Templates and tools
  • One-year access to the recordings
  • A Certificate of Attendance (12 CEs)

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